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From: dyer@atari.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Laser printer
Message-ID: <558@atari.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 11-Feb-87 16:46:32 EST
Article-I.D.: atari.558
Posted: Wed Feb 11 16:46:32 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 13-Feb-87 02:12:45 EST
References: <8702051433.AA26615@inria.UUCP> <4271@utah-cs.UUCP> <144@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>
Distribution: comp
Organization: Atari Corp., Sunnyvale CA
Lines: 28

Humph:

> To do any real work with a 300 dpi laser printer you need 2 megabytes.
> That's because 300*300*8*10 = 7200000 bits = 900000 bytes for a bit map
> of an 8*10 inch page at 300 dpi.  And then you need a lot of space for
> fonts and such.  Notice that the Laserjet plus and the Laserwriter plus
> both have 2 megs.  Thus, no desktop publishing with a 1040ST and the
> RAM-less Atari Laser Printer.


Calm down.  HP laserjets manage to do just fine, thank you, without
imaging a page.  (The laserjet plus has 512K --- a rumored "jumbo" jet
has 2Mb or something like that.  Go read your laserjet manual again).

The same memory non-constraints apply to the ST.  It is possible to
get surprisingly complex output by banding in real time.  These same
programming techniques were used in the days of the VCS, where the
processor had to keep up with the scanning electron (or laser) beam.
Fortunately, on the ST, only the guy writing the laser-printer driver
needs to worry about such things.  It doesn't have to use gobs of
memory, either.

Naturally, if you are using postscript, you *must* image a page,
because postscript is so very slow....

-- 
-Landon Dyer, Atari Corp.	    {sun,lll-lcc,imagen}!atari!dyer

The views expressed here do not not
necessarily reflect those of Atari Corp.	Segments are for worms.